In my U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,913,043, 5,039,295 and 5,161,458, I described and disclosed methods and apparatuses for the continuous manufacture of traditionally shaped foods such as egg rolls, for molding egg roll fillings and for combining the egg roll filling molding function with the continuous manufacturing functions. These continuous manufacturing methods and apparatuses have remained dependent upon the manual placement of the thin, non-rigid sheets of dough, which form the wrapping for the egg roll and other foods, on the conveyor belt of the continuous manufacturing apparatus. Also, the sheet of dough had to be positioned so that a corner of the sheet pointed downstream of the conveyor belt where it could receive the filling and be properly wrapped around the filling. Because of the awkward handling characteristics of these thin sheets of dough, it has been necessary to handle them manually and the manual handling has prevented my methods and apparatuses from being operated at their maximum capabilities in automatically producing traditionally shaped food products.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus for mechanically handling a sheet of food material such as a thin, non-rigid dough and feeding it to an automatic food product forming machine.
Accordingly, it is another object of my invention to provide an apparatus for mechanically removing a sheet of dough from a stack of sheets of dough and depositing the removed sheet of dough on a moving surface such as a conveyor belt in a desired orientation so that a food filling may be automatically placed on the sheet of dough and the sheet of dough and food filling may be subsequently mechanically formed into a wrapped food item such as an egg roll.
Another object of this invention is an apparatus that can pick up, carry and deposit a non-rigid piece of material such as a sheet of dough without damaging or distorting the sheet of dough.
Another object of this invention is an apparatus for depositing sheets of dough one at a time in a timed sequence on the feeding mechanism of an egg roll forming machine.
Still another object of this invention is a mechanism that moves a stack of sheets of dough incrementally upwardly towards a mechanism that picks off one sheet of dough at a time from the stack of sheets of dough.
Another object of this invention is an incremental lifting mechanism that uses air under pressure to raise a dough sheet support plate and a hydraulic escapement means to control the upward incremental movement of the dough sheet support plate.
Another object of this invention is a suction pick up apparatus which can lift, hold and deposit material such as a sheet of dough without distorting or damaging the dough.
Other objects may be found in the following specification, claims and drawings.